Mental health: Can flotation tanks cure what ails you?

The Saline Solution

By Laurie Lynn Fischer/HealthyLife

Float Tank

The 1980s science-fiction horror flick Altered States sensationalized neuroscientist John Lilly’s experiments in sensory isolation tanks. Now, the tanks are back — with new branding. Indeed, Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy (REST) is so big on the West Coast that cafes are naming menu items and beverages after it, says Richard Madden, proprietor of Float Well in Catskill.

“There’s a whole industry that uses saltwater flotation in various ways,” Madden says. “NASA has used this. Almost all the stimulation that ordinarily occupies our brain is suspended, including compensating for gravity. There’s a cadre of seekers who really value this modality. Artists and musicians are using it to stimulate creativity. The real thrust of this is anxiety reduction, stress reduction and profound relaxation.”

“It’s like reading the perfect poem,” she says. “It gets you there really quickly. For me, it’s not an out-of-body experience, but a body-out-of-the-way experience. The time just disappears and thoughts disappear. It’s like having a lens. I’m much more in the unconscious or intuitive state of mind and I’m working out images or issues that I’m having.”

Danika Atkins of Albany floats every month or so. “It helps you block out everything else,” she says. “It’s like you’re in a constant state of falling asleep. You kind of feel like you’re in a lucid dream where you can control what your mind is focusing on. Your brain kind of starts to send things. There might be flashes of light. Physically, you might twitch and feel blasts of sensations, even though there’s no stimulus. You don’t have the same kinds of pressures on your joints as when you’re lying in bed at night. Afterward, for a couple of days, my back feels awesome.”

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Tank time can speed recovery after injury or surgery, alleviate pain, fear depression and anxiety, help conquer addiction, lower blood pressure and improve athletic performance, claims Jasmine Hurtak, who has been offering 45- to 90-minute floats for two years at Chi Time in Dorset, Vt.

“The water is skin-temperature and you don’t have any light or distraction,” she says. “When you’re in the tank, there is only that inside left. You can really travel in that space and figure things out on purpose. The stress releases from your body while you’re there. It’s a nice tool, particularly for our culture because we have become very materially oriented. It’s really cool to hang out in that zone and feel your expanded self.”

Get Tanked

Want to try floating? More than 100 tanks are available to the public nationwide.

Float Well in Catskill offers three introductory floats for $150 or 10 floats for $400-$500. If you’d prefer a float room, Blue Light Floatation in New York City charges $80 an hour or $600 for 10 sessions.

Would you rather own than rent? New tanks sell for $10,000 to $45,000. Used tanks cost $5,000 and up. British manufacturers include i-sopod and Floataway. Domestic brands include Oasis and Samadhi, which means “serenity.”

If you’re handy, you can build your own flotation tank. One do-it-yourselfer shares his plans online at: tinyurl.com/HLjan13-float

To learn more, read The Book of Floating, Exploring the Private Sea and Megabrain by Michael Hutchison.

“Imagine lolling in a giant Jell-O shot or reclining on a waterbed, without the bed.”

My No-Sensation Flotation Vacation

One woman’s experience

Not sure what to expect from a sensory deprivation tank float? Here’s what it was like for me when I was suspended in a 93.5-degree mixture of water and magnesium sulfate.

“There’s never been a reported drowning to my knowledge. You go in on your back and it’s almost impossible to roll over.”

“After every float, it goes into a 15-minute filtration and chlorination cycle. It’s the same standards as a swimming pool.”

The day of my appointment, Madden advised me to avoid personal care products, and though I’d already showered, he asked me to do so again. I wasn’t even allowed to wear a hair rubber band.

Blue light bathed the float room. The gleaming white tank looked like an alien spacecraft. Its hatch opened upward, like the door to a DeLorean. Something about the shape made me feel as though I were stepping into the maw of the man-eating plant from Little Shop of Horrors.

I am fearful of being stuck in an elevator, but I didn’t feel claustrophobic at all inside the tank, which is about 8 feet long and 5 feet wide. Imagine lolling in a giant Jell-O shot or reclining on a waterbed, without the bed. My body was more buoyant than when I bobbed in the Great Salt Lake.

At first, I acted a little like a kid in the back of a limo for the first time. I opened and closed the lid. I turned the interior light on and off. I left the red button that said “call” alone. Fidgeting, I tried lying with the neck pillow, then without it. I swished around and got brine in my eyes. It stung for a moment, but a towel was within reach.

I heard the lulling sound of crying seagulls and breaking waves. Then, silence. As the hero says in the cult film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, “Wherever you go, there you are.”

I tuned into my breathing. What sensations I did feel seemed heightened, whether my foot bumped the tank’s side or I reached up to touch my mermaidy hair. Finally, I lay still with my eyes shut. By the time the session was through, I didn’t want to get out. I left with a sense of well-being that lasted throughout the day.